Many passenger seats such as those on passenger aircraft, buses, trains, and the like are arranged so that each passenger seat, other than the forward-most located passenger seats, faces the back of the next forward passenger seat. To increase a passenger's comfort, many passenger seat backs rotate between upright and reclined positions.
In some instances, a tray table may be mounted adjacent the back of each passenger seat for use by a passenger in the next aft passenger seat. The tray table is deployed by the passenger to provide a relatively flat surface for eating, working, recreation, or other uses.
In many conventional uses, the tray table may be mounted to the back of each passenger seat via a pair of retractable arms that allow the tray table to be pulled toward the passenger when deployed.
As shown in FIGS. 2-3, in a conventional configuration, a pair of slide guides 18 are coupled to the sides of an internal aluminum structure that forms the table body of the tray table. Because the slide guides 18 are formed individually and attached to the internal aluminum structure, an unnecessary tolerance stack build-up may occur between the various components, leading to potentially non-parallel slide guides 18 that have inferior sliding properties due to the lack of alignment along a sliding plane.
In certain situations, it may be desirable to reduce the amount of tolerance stack build-up between the slide guides 18 and/or to provide a more rigid structure that prevents warpage of the plane between the slide guides 18, while also providing a lightweight and durable tray table.